


Tell me it's a good start

by Teatrolley



Series: be my rest, be my fantasy [2]
Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Established Relationship, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Even Bech Næsheim, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-24 14:46:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13216035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teatrolley/pseuds/Teatrolley
Summary: The thing about Isak is that, to Even, none of this is new.OR: Even's POV ofIt's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, before during and beyond. And a New Year's Eve





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Tell me it's a good start](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13502374) by [sunny_witch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunny_witch/pseuds/sunny_witch)



> surprise! i did tell you i’d do an even pov didn’t i? 
> 
> anyway i didn’t tell y’all about this because i didn’t know if i’d finish it in time but look! i did! also it feels a little niche but i wanted to write it so suck it and have it anyway lol
> 
> cw for mentions of even’s sa. title is from the song tell me there’s a garden by joseph. hope you enjoy!

**December 31st 2017**

The thing about Isak is that, to Even, none of this is new.

Well. None of it is new at the same time as all of it is new, but it’s not the first time, in Even’s life, that he’s looked at someone he just met and thought, _oh_.

Beginnings are endings, and endings are beginnings, and moving out of the flat he shared with Sonja and into this one that _Isak_ , that’s his name, lives in, is as much an ending of something as it is a beginning of something else.

So then December happens. And then, now:

It’s New Year’s Eve.

*

He’s at the door when his friends arrive. They’re having a party. 

It was Eskild’s idea, really, and there’ll be loads of people here, later, Isak’s boys and Isak’s girls, Eskild’s older friends and then: Even’s boys.

“Hello Stranger,” Mikael greets him, when they all manage to ascend the stairs to arrive in front of the flat’s front door. When he reaches out to pull Even into a hug, Even hugs him back, rubbing his upper back a little. “We haven’t seen you since before Christmas.”

“No, sorry,” Even says, reaching out to hug the others, too. “I know.”

“He’s in love,” Mutta says, embracing him too, now, and Even smiles at the others over his shoulder. “Let him.”

“Mutta is right.”

“Is Sana here?” Yousef asks, and Adam rolls his eyes as Even laughs, arm still around Mutta’s shoulders as Mutta’s arms stay locked around his waist, in the way they all started doing it, years ago, when Even started needing someone to touch him.

“She’s in the living room,” he says. “Her and Isak have been arguing since she arrived.”

“Thanks,” Yousef says, and then, before he heads off into the flat: “Later.”

“Isak, eh?” Adam chimes in, instead. “So how is he?”

“Shut up.”

“I’m not saying anything.”

“Mm, right,” Even says, and Adam laughs in that teasing way of his. “But he’s good.”

“That’s good,” Elias says, and then, rummaging through the plastic bag he’s holding, that sounds like it’s filled with bottles: “Do you wanna see how adult we are?”

“Yeah?”

“Look.” He pulls a bottle of champagne out of the bag, and hands it over to Even, who lets go of Mutta to take it, turning it around to look at the label. “We brought a gift for the host.”

“Nice,” Even says. “Fancy.” Then hands the bottle back to him. “Eskild’s in the kitchen, probably.”

“It’s for you.”

“I’m not the host.”

“Ugh,” Elias groans but then, with a bit of a look in his direction, heads off anyway. Even looks after him, before he turns back to the others. Grinning.

“You did that just to tease him,” Mutta says, and Even nods.

“Yep,” he says. The rest of them all laugh. “I did.”

“Amazing.”

“Thank you.”

“So, you’re good?” Mikael asks, and he says it with that caring look on his face, the one he wears whenever he checks in, which he does so often it’s far more than what Even needs him to, but which Even appreciates anyway. So he nods. And Mikael does, too. “Christmas was okay?”

“Yeah,” Even says. “It’s all been good.”

“Good,” Mikael says.

“Yeah. Good.”

*

When Isak first comes onto him, and Even freaks out about it, it’s Mikael he goes to.

Well. It’s Mikael and Adam, really, since they live together, and it’s not the first time either, that he’s shown up at their door late at night. Not since he and Sonja first started getting into regular fights.

“So let me guess,” Mikael says, gently, sitting with him in his and Adam’s kitchen like they’ve sat together so many times, palms wrapped around steaming cups of tea and Even talking out his problems with him, because he needs to talk them out with someone and Mikael always seems to volunteer. “He came onto you and now you’re freaking out.”

“Yes.”

“Because you’re scared of hurting him and you’re scared of fucking the both of you up?”

“Yes.”

“And because it’s so fast you don’t really trust yourself with it yet?”

“Am I that predictable?”

“Yeah,” Mikael says, but he’s smiling, still in that gentle way. “You are.” He shrugs. “And I guess it just makes sense, too. It is kind of fast.”

“Yeah,” Even says. “I don’t know.” And then, hiding his face in his hands: “God, I don’t know, but I feel like an asshole. I’ve been flirting, you know. He’s not getting this from nowhere. And–”

And Isak’s been so hard to open up, probably has more pain in his life than Even knows of yet, probably had to amass a lot of bravery to even consider telling Even how he feels, how he _feels_ , God–

” _Fuck_. He _likes_ me and I just pulled away. Mik–”

“Calm down,” Mikael says. “He’ll get over it. You’re not that irresistible.”

“It’s not funny.”

Mikael is smiling in a hesitant way, head tilted a little bit to the side.

“It’s a little bit funny,” he says, and shrugs when Even sends him a look. “All I’m saying is that you’re about to panic like you just ruined his whole life, because everything is always so intense with you, and it’s good with some perspective sometimes.”

“Okay.”

Mikael nods.

“So," he says. "Are you going to tell me why you decided to pull away or what?”

“Didn’t you already kind of tell yourself?”

“Ev.” There, that head again, slanted just slightly to the side, like there’s something obvious that Even is failing to see, or like he’s being amusing and Mikael is thinking that because he cares about him. “I want to hear it from you.”

It’s a little tragic, maybe, that Even is still unused to hearing words like that.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I just–” He sighs. Breathes. Looks at Mikael, in the moonlight, at the bedroom door in the hallway behind him, closed so they won’t disturb Adam, who’s sleeping. “I just can’t do it again. I just can’t.”

“Do what?”

“Mikael,” he says, because he was so in love with him once, and it’s moved on from, now, but not forgotten, and because Even still thinks about. Thinks about it often. So: “I traumatised you so badly.”

“No,” Mikael says. “Will you stop?” And they never really make it beyond here, but now: “You didn’t ruin me by being in love with me, or whatever else kind of self-absorbed–”

“Hey–”

“Thing that you’re thinking. Even.” Mikael looks at him, and Even could be upset, but maybe Mikael is a little bit right. “It broke my heart that you wanted to die, and that you tried to, and it broke my heart that some of it was because of the heartbreak you were feeling over me, of course it did. But that had nothing to do with romance, okay, and everything to do with you being sick.”

“Yeah, but if I hadn’t been in love then maybe–”

“Did you miss the Biology class where we talked about how you shouldn’t assume causality?”

“Mikael.”

“Even.”

“It’s just different when you’re ill, okay?” Even says. “Romance is. And I don’t mean this in a rude way, but you probably can’t understand.”

“No.” Mikael shakes his head. Shrugs. “I probably can’t.” And then: “But Adam and I, we’re a risk too, right? That’s a lot of shit that would happen to our friendship group, if we didn’t work out.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry." Mikael sighs. "You take the blame of too many things onto yourself.”

“Okay.”

“All I’m saying,” Mikael goes on. “Is that you don’t have to date him if you don’t want to date him, but that it seems like maybe you do. And if you do, then you don’t have to pre-emptively start carrying the blame of every possible thing that could go wrong between you, or look at it like you’re, I don’t know… Giving him a burden by giving him you.”

“Aren’t I?”

“I don’t think so,” Mikael says. “I know it’s, like, really all-encompassing to you and everything, but to me you’re like a thousand other things before you’re an ill person, and one of them is a good friend. So, you know… I’m guessing you’re not too bad of a boyfriend, either.”

Even smiles. Smiles, because Mikael is a good friend, too, and because he’s far better, probably, than any of them manage to give him credit for.

“You’re a very, very nice person, Mik, you know that?”

“Hm,” Mikael says. “Thanks.”

“It’s true.”

“Alright.” Mikael shrugs. Takes a sip of his tea, smiling around the rim of his cup, and all of this was so intense, like it always is when Even talks about his feelings, but it’s calmed down, now. He feels calmer, now. “Isak’s pretty nice, too, isn’t he?”

And Even: Even grins, shyly, almost, because Isak really is and, God. He feels it so much, the way his whole being is calling out now, to be around him, because he likes his presence and his mind and his voice; the way it’s comfortable and jittery, all at the same time, as new infatuation is and has been for him before; the way he wants to give him everything.

The way it’s happening so fast he was nervous, at first, that maybe it wasn’t real. The way he’s pretty damn certain, by now, that that’s exactly what it is. So:

“Yeah,” he says. “Isak is really, really nice.”

“ _Isak_ ,” Mikael says.

“Hm?”

“No, nothing.” Mikael shrugs, lit by the moonlight, still. “Just haven’t heard you say anyone’s name like that in a while.”

Even smiles, again. Smiles because maybe, really, maybe he’s just a young guy in love with another young guy, and maybe it’s as simple as that. So:

“You can talk,” he says. “Your whole life now is just you saying Adam this, and Adam that, and Adam and I–”

“Shut up.”

“It’s so sweet.”

“Be quiet.”

They laugh, together. Laugh and roll their eyes.

“No,” Even says, and then: “Can I sleep on your couch tonight? I know we just did the heavy lifting conversation but I probably still need some time to think.”

“Yeah,” Mikael says. “You can always sleep on the couch, you know that.”

“Okay.” Even nods. “You’re a good friend, too, Mik.”

“Thanks," Mikael says. And smiles.

*

Now, on New Year’s Eve, Even walks back into the living room from the hallway, and up to Isak who’s standing in the corner, picking at a clementine, having a chat with Sana.

When he reaches him, Even puts his arms around him from behind. Carefully, because there are two champagne glasses in his hands.

“Oh,” Isak says, warmth sitting all over his voice, as his hands come up as if to hold onto Even’s arms around his chest before he sees the two glasses, and changes directions to take one of them instead. “This for me?”

“Mm,” Even says, letting go of one of them to give it to him, before he slides his newly free palm over Isak’s shoulder, down to his chest, rubbing it a little as he tugs him in against his own. Isak’s hand comes up to hold onto his arm, just a slight little touch, and as Even leans in to kiss his temple, he smiles. “For you.”

“Thank you.”

“Hm. What are you two chatting about to passionately over here, anyway?” Even goes on, finding Sana’s gaze and sending her a smile, too, as he keeps tugging Isak in close against his chest. “Must be very exciting.”

“Sana thinks I shouldn’t be allowed to light the fireworks.”

“If we’re going to be doctors,” Sana says. “We need our eyes to work.”

“If you believe in my ability to fucking operate on people, shouldn’t you believe in my ability to light a fuse, too?”

“No.”

“You’re illogical,” Isak says, and then, to Even: “Is this champagne?”

“Yeah?”

“But I want beer.”

Even and Sana chuckle at the same time, but Even suspects Sana’s is far more exasperated than his is. Probably, he thinks, that’s because his isn’t exasperated at all.

“You want beer?” Even asks, nodding out his goodbye to Sana who’s slipping away, before he turns back to Isak with raised brows to emphasize the question, already smiling at the way Isak is smiling. “Hm?”

“Yeah,” Isak says, turning around in his grasp, now, both of their glasses abandoned, and pulling him in close. He fixes the collar of Even’s shirt, _the kind he likes_ , before he rests his arms around Even’s neck instead, and Even is quickly learning that with Isak, it will always be like this: little, private universes, spun out of parties and crowds; the gifts that they are, gifted to each other. “I do.”

“But it’s New Year’s.”

“Mm.”

With an arm around Isak’s waist, and a palm resting on his cheek, Even smiles. Outside someone is already setting off their fireworks, and in the kitchen someone laughs, but right now there’s only them.

“I’ll get you beer,” he says, not even pretending to pull away, but Isak tugs him in a little closer anyway.

“No,” he says, eyes going heavy-liddedly tender and soft. “Stay a little.”

“You can’t have both.”

“Stay.”

Even smiles.

“You’re so sweet.”

“Hm.”

And Isak kisses him.

He always does it like this, too. Melts into it, like he wants nothing but to be in them and experience them fully; kisses so passionately and honestly back. 

Even meant what he said, back some weeks ago when he told Isak that he’s fascinating. There’s his dedication to feeling his feelings. His stoicism, his bravery, his kindness, the persistence with which he cares.

The way he loves science, says he loves it because he likes logic, and the way he twists it around, _multiple universes,_ and makes it a grander confession of romance than Even’s ever been talented enough to write. The way there’s still traces of some religious in him, too.

When he came back from spending Christmas with his family, early on the 27th, Isak had asked him what he wanted to do, and Even: Even had pulled him in, lowered his voice a little so Isak would know he was flirting but that he meant it, too, and said, _I just want to lie around and talk to you._

“You know,” Isak says, now, still fingering the collar of his shirt, and Even could hold him in his arms forever like this. “You look hot today.”

“Mm.” Even grins. Watches Isak grin, eyes a little heavy-lidded and a little teasing, all at the same time, and reaches down to touch the collar of his shirt that Isak just let go off, reaching up to touch his neck instead. “I wore this because you like it.”

“Oh?” Isak asks, and Even loves this. The flirting. Has always loved flirting, really, and loves it with Isak, too.

“Mm,” he confirms and, then, with a grin on his face, too, lets his hand on Isak’s waist slip a little lower, a little below the small of his back, where it stops. “Do you like it?”

“Control yourself,” Isak says and, filled to the brim with it, Even laughs. “I’m not fucking you in our living room in front of all of these people.”

“No?” Even says, still laughing, and now Isak is chuckling, too, reaching out to touch the corner of his mouth, lifted with the smile of it. “And here I was, thinking that’d be a great idea.”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

“Mm.”

Glancing at his lips, Isak lifts his own chin, and Even loves that little quirk of his, the teasing, playful, shy nature of it, and Even would do whatever Isak could request, probably, so he does this, too. Leans in, noses bumping together first, sliding up the lengths of each other–

And kisses him.

*

He’s not the only one who thinks Isak is fascinating, or that Isak should have everything. Isak’s friends do, too.

Well. Eskild and Jonas especially.

When he first met Jonas to talk about the room, he didn’t expect the flat to be like this. When he moved out of home he moved in with Sonja, so he’s never lived with roommates before, but every story he’s heard has been telling him about how casual it is. How occasionally annoying and how, certainly, it’s nothing like family.

Only this flat sort of is.

That first Sunday after he’s moved in, where Isak refuses to tell him about his family life and Eskild tells him that Isak is the kind of person they’d all kill for, and where Isak spends the night on the living room couch, sleeping, Even asks Eskild how he ended up living where he is.

“I’m gay,” he says, like it explains everything, and maybe, sadly, it kind of does. And then: “And you know, yada yada yada, I won’t bore you with the details, but I ended up moving out pretty young. And then ended up taking people in.”

“Sorry,” Even says. “I didn’t know it was a personal subject.”

“It’s okay.” Eskild shrugs. “I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t want to.”

“Okay.”

“Mm.”

“Do they know that that’s why?”

Eskild shrugs.

“I mean,” he says. “At this point it’s mostly with Isak. I wasn’t really the one who took Jonas in, it just happened that way, and he’s looked out for by other people so it’s not so much with him. And then there’s the fourth room.”

“Me,” Even says, when Eskild raises his brows in his direction.

“Yeah, you.” He smiles. “You need help with anything? Any family traumas? Sexuality issues?”

Even almost laughs.

“Well,” he says. “I am pan.”

“Oh?”

“But my family is really nice about it, so…" He shrugs. "And I’ve only had a girlfriend until now, so I don’t know if I can really… claim my part in the community yet.”

“You can.”

“Yeah, but–”

Even shrugs. Doesn’t go on.

It’s weird to explain, how it’s been so much a part of his identity, and so little a part of his behaviour, aside from the way he’s chatted about it to the people in his life, that it all feels… strangely unreal, still. Strangely unreal in a way he wish it didn’t, because it _is_ real, and it means a lot to him that people understand that about him.

“I don’t know,” he ends up saying, because, really, he kind of doesn’t.

“Hm,” Eskild says. “We could go to a bar? Isak seems to like you enough that he’d even want to come.”

“He’s gay, too?”

“Oh.” Eskild grimaces a little, before he holds up a palm, as if to stop Even from going on before he’s explained himself. “To be fair,” he goes on. “That’s my first slip-up.”

“It’s okay,” Even says. “I’ll let him tell me like I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

“And thanks for the offer," Even goes on, but shrugs. “I do think I should probably just… lay low for a bit, though,” he says. “Get over the break-up.”

“Yeah,” Eskild says. “Makes sense.”

“Hm.”

“But if you need anything…”

“Just holler?”

Eskild smiles.

“Exactly,” he says. “Just holler.”

*

Back during New Year’s Eve he finds himself on the living room couch, lying with his head in Isak’s lap and his feet in Mikael’s.

They’ve eaten, now, and are hanging out around the place, killing time until Eskild makes up a game for them all to play, or deems it time for desert, or the clock strikes midnight. Above him, Isak is wearing one of Eskild’s New Year’s Eve hats just to appease him, while he watches Mikael as he, absentmindedly, cards his fingers through Even’s hair, and Even:

Even could get used to this.

“Hm,” Mikael says, continuing a conversation he and Isak were already having that Even hasn’t been listening to attentively, focusing on Isak’s fingertips rubbing over his scalp in that kind of comfortable way that’d make anyone close their eyes to savour it instead. “You were religious when you were younger?”

“Mm,” Isak says. “Christian.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah. You’re still religious, right?”

“Yeah. Adam and I both are.” Even smiles a little to himself, as Mikael’s hand comes down to touch his ankle. “So we just… ignore all the homophobic parts.”

“Yeah.” Above him, Isak chuckles. “Same.”

“Mm.”

“Did you do, like,” Even says, glancing up at him, and watches it when Isak turns back to him, fixing his hair with a little more intention than he did when he was looking away. “Bible study and stuff?”

“Yeah,” Isak says. “Went to church every Sunday and had crosses everywhere in the house like we were some sort of Stephen King movie–” Even laughs, and Isak smiles, rubbing a thumb over his forehead. “Prayed every night.”

“About?”

“Oh, sad things,” Isak says. “I’ll tell you later.”

Even smiles. Smiles, thinks about contrast, and reaches up to take Isak’s hand in his own, briefly, leaning up to press a kiss to the palm of it, the wrist of it, the heel of his hand. Isak smiles, too.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay.”

“It’s a whole thing for you now, eh?” Mikael asks, pulling the both of them back to the party. “Religious boys.”

“Shut up.” They both grin. “It’s not a _thing_.”

“Why is it a thing?” Isak asks, now.

“It’s not a thing.” Isak raises his brows. “Okay whatever.” Then grins, too. “I don’t know. Maybe I just like that you’re kind.”

“Ev’s life philosophy is kindness,” Mikael says, and Even is torn away from looking at Isak’s soft smile to looking at him.

“Why do you say it like that?”

“Like what?”

“The same way you say, _Ev’s favourite director is Baz Lurhman_.”

Mikael laughs. “Did I? Sorry?”

“He’s the… Romeo + Juliet guy?” Isak asks, cute little frown appearing between his brows as it looks like he’s trying to remember and Even treasures this: the attention that Isak pays to him, so careful and persistent and real.

“Yeah,” he says. “And the Great Gatsby guy.” Isak grimaces, just a little, and Even snorts. “Yeah, you didn’t like that one.”

“I didn’t hate it.”

“It’s okay,” Even says. “It’s not his best work.”

“Wow.” Mikael raises his brows at him. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you refrain from defending Baz before–”

“That’s so not true.”

“Isak,” Mikael goes on, and Isak looks at him. “I think he really likes you.”

Isak grins. And Even considers giving Mikael a telling off about all of this, but he won’t. Not when Isak looks as sweet as this. As happy as this.

“Mm,” he says, instead of that, then, and taps Isak’s arm to make Isak turn his attention back his way and then, when he does, reaches up to place a palm on the back of his neck. It’s an awkward position, but it doesn’t matter, because Isak seems to get the hint anyway, eyes falling to Even’s lips. “I do.”

It’s a quick kiss, probably because they’re in public and Isak is polite like that, at least when it’s Even’s friends they’re in front of, but it’s a kiss nonetheless. Even lifts his head from his position on Isak’s lap, following Isak a little when he tries to pull away, just to prolong it for a bit, and the corners of Isak’s lips lift against his own.

“What’s the Romeo + Juliet thing about anyway?” Isak asks when they’ve pulled apart and Even is still smiling to himself, ignoring Mikael’s overbearingly bemused look about it. “Hm?”

“Oh, that’s my fault,” Mikael says. “Apparently crushing on me was so hard he decides that love is tragic and can only end epically if it ends tragically, too.”

“That’s…” Even says. “An oversimplification.” Mikael raises his brows, and Isak looks at him, too. “But kind of true.”

“Really?”

“Well. Parallel to the truth.”

Isak raises his brows, too.

“Okay,” he says. "So do you still think that? That love is tragic?”

“No,” Even says.

“You don’t?”

Isak is looking at him and Even: Even hasn’t felt like that in a long time, hasn’t felt like that since before he even knew that Isak existed, but even if that wasn’t true he’d have changed his mind now. So:

“No,” he says. “I don’t.”

*

They didn’t talk a whole lot about his bipolar, the thing that made love seem tragic, before they got together. But after, they do.

It’s the 28th and they’ve stayed in bed the whole day and are planning to continue to stay in bed for the rest of it, too, kissing and touching, the arch on the underside of Isak's foot and Even's thumb digged into it, the spot just above Isak's hip, just behind Even's ear. Touching and talking; talking, talking, talking, opening up in all of the ways they haven’t opened up before, which aren’t a lot but are still some.

Outside it’s snowing, and it’s a weird sort of time, these days. Christmas is over, now, but the tree is still in the living room, and some of Even’s Christmas presents are in a bag on the floor, still without a designated space in his room or in the kitchen.

There’s nothing to do, nothing to work towards, and some years Even has found that transition difficult, the same way it’s difficult to finish one of his movies and let it out into the world because, suddenly, the thing that kept your mind occupied is gone.

Not this time, though. This time there’s this, and while he still feels a little directionless and a little tired, there’s this. There’s them.

“Are they annoying?” Isak asks, looking at the pill-bottle that Even left on his bedside table this morning after Isak brought it to him. “The pills?”

“I don’t know,” Even says, and it’s nice to be able to say that. For Isak not to expect an answer if he doesn’t have one. “I like them, in a sense, because they make me stable and it means I have to spend less time and effort keeping myself that way.”

“Mm.” Isak nods. “Mamma says that, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Hm.” From his position on Even’s chest, Isak reaches up to slide a palm over his shoulder, so Even cards his fingers through his hair. Glancing up at him, Isak gives him a little smile. “What else?”

“What else?”

“You had more to say.”

“Hm.” Even smiles, and God, this boy. “Yeah. I like them, in a sense,” he repeats, and Isak nods. “But it’s weird, too. Like… I have to take pills to become myself?”

Isak snorts, and Even loves that. That he sees how it’s funny.

“That’s strange. Just existentially, that’s strange.”

“Yeah,” Isak says. “That is strange.”

“Yeah.” Even glances out of the window, sighing a bit. “I don’t really talk about that with anyone.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Even breathes. “I don’t know. It makes them worry.” Isak glances up at him, watching, but doesn’t interrupt. Just waits. “That I’m going to stop taking them, I guess.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Even smiles. “Okay?”

“Mm.” Isak shrugs. “Well, what do you want me to say? _That’s great, baby_?”

“You don’t call me baby.”

“I could.” Now Isak is moving, shifting around so they faces are close, placing a palm on Even’s neck as Even slides a palm over his spine up under his hoodie and tugs him closer, slipping a thigh in-between his legs. “ _Hey, honey. What are we doing for dinner tonight_?”

“You’re so sweet.”

“Mm.”

Pressing the tips of their noses together for a brief second, before he lets them slide along the length of each other as he slips in, Isak kisses him. Kisses him in that hungry, melty, pliant way he has, pressing in close as he’s doing it, as Even, arms around his waist, tugs him in closer, too.

“Mm,” Isak repeats, pulling back a little, and Even is delighted to find that they’re both smiling. “ _Hey, you_?”

“I like that.”

“You like that?”

“Mm.” Even nods, touching him, still. “I like how you see me.”

“How do I see you?”

Isak whispers it, stays close to his face, removes his hair from his forehead, and Even smiles.

“Like,” he says. “Someone who’s not just ill.”

Isak tilts his head a little, maybe in surprise, and Even gets that. Understands that he’s kept this under wraps a bit, because he does. Treat it like it’s not a big deal, and people won’t make it one, but remember to see you as a real person, instead. But Isak–

“You’re not,” Isak says. And then: “You haven’t really talked about it like this before. I didn’t know it took up this much space in your life.”

Even shrugs.

“It doesn’t,” he says. “Not always. It’s just weird, you know?” Isak nods, just a little, for him to go on. “It’s such a big part of my life that I feel like it’s a part of who I am, too, but it’s not. It’s not a personality trait. But at the same time…”

He sighs, and this is the real kicker. The balance of how much he makes it a part of his understanding of himself.

“I don’t know,” he goes on, and he doesn’t. “I haven’t quite decided on that one yet.”

“Hm,” Isak says, and then: “Do you have to?”

Even smiles. Smiles because he’s so patient, and because Even is still getting used to that.

“Maybe not,” he says. “I just think about it a lot.”

“You think about a lot of things a lot.”

Even snorts, and Isak smiles, a soft, warm, little thing.

“Yeah. Mikael says I live too much inside of my own head.”

“What do you say?”

Even shrugs.

“I don’t know,” he says, because, once again, he doesn’t. “He could be right.”

“Hm,” Isak says. “Okay. So it’s in my job description to get you out of it–” Even chuckles. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“I guess it is,” he says, tugging Isak in a little closer, again, hand sneaking down a little lower than his lower back, to which Isak, in a teasing sort of way, smiles. “Are you coming onto me?”

“Are you coming onto me?”

“Always.”

“Good,” Isak says, rolling over to kiss his neck, open-mouthed in that way he has, like he's trying to take it all in, and Even throws his head back to let him. “Good plan.”

“Yeah.” Even nods. “Good plan.”

*

It’s true that he likes how Isak sees him. He’s liked it all along. Did like it, too, even earlier, after he’d just moved in, when he was cooking dinner and making mulled wine and trying to be kind but also, to lure the rest of them, discreetly, into spending their evenings out in the living room. With him.

He’s an extrovert, probably, has always gotten his energy from being around other people, even when he was a little kid, but i’s gotten more intense since his diagnosis and, again, since his break-up.

It’s just that it’s nice, to be kept company. It’s just that it’s nice to be pulled a little out of his head.

He likes how understanding Isak is, too. How much he lets Even feel the things he’s feeling. He’s used to monitoring everything, aiming for stable to the degree that he’s forgetting to let himself feel the things he’s feeling, but Isak:

Isak smiles at him, softly, and Isak says things like, _it’s okay to be tired though, right? Maybe you just need to let yourself feel that for a bit_ , and he does it with the kind of sincerity that Even could never doubt. So Even:

Even thinks, for the first time in a long time, that maybe it _is_ okay.

*

They’re still on the couch, Mikael and Isak and him when, a little into the evening, Jonas comes over.

“Hey,” he says, giving the whole situation a once-over and frowning a bit, in a way that makes Even catch Isak’s eye so they can share a smile about it. “Looks cozy.”

“Mm,” Isak says, touching Even’s hair, still, and Even grins. Then, as he looks up to Jonas: “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to hear if– Even?” Jonas says.

“Mm?”

“Can we use your speaker for music?”

“Sure,” Even says. “Go ahead.”

“Thanks.” Even doesn’t move, and Jonas raises his brows. “You’re not gonna get it for me?”

“Nope.”

“Are you going to let us all avoid listening to Gabrielle tonight?”

“Nope.”

Jonas laughs. Isak does, too, even though he rolls his eyes as well. Mikael just groans.

“You’re impossible,” Jonas says, and Even keeps smiling.

“Thank you.”

“Hm.”

Earlier in the month, after Even’s pulled away from Isak and come back, Jonas finds him and corners him too but, contrary to Even’s expectation, he isn’t mad about any of it. Actually, he’s kind.

“You know,” he says, catching Even in the kitchen after Isak has stormed out on him and Even’s been resting his forehead on the kitchen table in front of him, trying to take a moment to gather himself. “We’re not mad at you.”

Surprised, Even glances at him with raised brows, but Jonas just shrugs as he clears Isak’s left-behind cereal away in a move that’s so kind that Even feels a little bad about it; that Even wants, a little, to tell him to drop it and let Even do it, because if Even made the mess in some roundabout sort of way, then the least he could do is clean it up himself.

“That makes one of us,” he says, instead of saying that, and has Jonas’s kind eyes on him again.

“Hm,” he says, shrugging again. “You’re allowed to not like him back, you know.”

 _But I do_ , Even thinks. _I do, I do, I do_.

“Yeah,” he says, instead of saying that. Again instead of saying that.

“You okay?” Jonas looks at him. “You look a bit down?”

“You don’t have to–” Even inhales. Exhales. “I’m fine. I just want to talk to him.”

“Hm.” Now Jonas is putting the bowl, cleansed in the sink, in the dishwasher. “I don’t think he needs to know the details of why, you know?”

“That’s not–” Even sighs. “What I want to say.”

“ _Oh_?” Jonas is watching him now, attentively, eyes a little wide. “What do you want to say, then?”

“I can’t tell you that.” Jonas’s brows raise further. “I mean, I should probably talk to him about that first. You know?”

Jonas smiles. It dawns slowly, but then it’s there, wide and huge, and Even accepts that he probably wasn’t going to get away with letting this talk go here without him figuring it all out.

“Mm,” Jonas says. “I know. You’d be good together, though.”

“Jonas.”

“Okay, okay.” Jonas holds up his hands, palms facing in Even’s direction. “I’m gonna stop meddling.”

“Hm.”

“But great.”

 _Yeah_ , Even thinks. _It could be really, really great._

*

A few months before that, he’s breaking up with Sonja.

He comes home late one night, to the flat that they share and have shared for years, now, and they’re at the point where he already knows that as soon as he’s opened the door there’ll be a fight coming, but he opens the door anyway.

It’s not like he has much of a choice.

He’s right, though. While he takes his shoes off in the hallway she stands in the doorway to their living room, watching him with her arms crossed in front of her chest. She waits until his shoes are off before she says anything. Then:

“Where were you?”

“I was out filming,” he says. Hangs his jacket up and goes up to her, kissing her cheek hello even though he doesn’t really want to, because he always has. “I told you I’d be out filming, right?”

“Mm,” she says. “It’s just that it’s two hours past your meds time.”

He closes his eyes. Sighs. Digs his thumb into that spot beneath his eyebrows where his headache already sits.

“Sonja,” he says. “Do we have to do this tonight?”

“Do what?” Sonja says. “I just said that it’s two hours past your meds time. It’s you who’s on the defensive all of the time.”

Maybe Even shouldn’t be rolling his eyes. Maybe it’s not the right, diplomatic thing to do. 

He does it anyway.

“You treat me,” he says. “Like you’re my goddamn babysitter.”

“All I’m asking is that you take care of yourself.”

“That’s not true. You know that’s not true.”

They look at each other. There’s light in the lamp by their couch and a book open on the coffee table and Even so wishes that they could just have a normal fucking night. That they could go to sleep, and hold each other, and not fucking do this.

“Sonja,” he says. “I’m trying. I know I’m not perfect about it, okay, I know I smoke too much and I know that you wish I wouldn’t, but I take my meds and I keep a sleep schedule and I go to therapy and I just want to live a little, too, okay?”

“You’d just be so much healthier if you gave it up,” she says, and as he shrugs, he sits down on the couch, suddenly exhausted. “Maybe life would be so much easier for the both of us.”

“Come on,” he says.

“What?”

“That’s not fair." He looks at her. "It’s not all my fault that we’re like this.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You thought it.”

“You don’t know that.”

He sighs. Sighs and hides his face in his hands, shaking it, as he tries not to let his annoyance boil over too much. Then:

“It’s just hard,” she says.

“Come _on_.” He glances up from his hands to look at her. “Why is it always my fault? And if I’m actually such a grand, big burden to you, why are you still here? Why do you stay?”

“Why does this conversation always end with you trying to push me out of the door?”

“ _Because_ ,” he says. “You sound like you’re miserable. You sound like I _make_ you miserable.”

“Can’t we fix it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what you want from me, other than for me to change myself entirely, which I can’t do. I don’t know how to give you what it is you think you need.”

“Even–”

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry that this isn’t what you thought it would be, and that I’ve hurt you, and that I keep hurting you, and I’m sorry that I tried to kill myself once–”

“Lower your voice.”

“You don’t even _care_. Sonja.” He looks at her. “You don’t even care.”

“I do.”

“I’m so tired,” he says, face in his palms again, shaking his head as he tries to shake off the exhaustion that seems to be seeping into the very depth of his bones. As he tries to catch a breath that’s deep enough to ease any of this. “And I’m so sad.”

“Me, too.”

When he glances up, hands in his lap, now, Sonja is sitting on the coffee table across from him, a hesitant sort of smile on her face, and when she reaches out to touch his hand, down by his wrist, he turns it around to let her.

“Maybe everyone feels like this sometimes,” Sonja says, and Even: Even shakes his head.

“That’s so sad,” he says. “Can’t you see that that’s so sad?”

“I don’t know who I am without you.”

Even could cry. He could and he almost does, because he’s so miserable, and he’s loved Sonja for so long, and he wishes so badly that he could fix this. That they could change it, and make it better. He just doesn’t know how.

“I don’t either,” he says, because he doesn’t. It’s been so long, been such a large part of his life for so long, and like any two people who have lived side by side for so long, they’ve almost grown together at the hip.

“Baby,” he says, because it looks like she might start to cry, too, as he reaches up to wipe a thumb across the soft, bluish skin under her eye. And then: “I’m just so _tired_.”

“Yeah.”

“I just feel like I can’t do anything right, and like I keep disappointing you, and like you’re… suffocating me. Like I owe you something for putting up with the burden of being with me, and that can’t–” He sighs. “There has to be something out there that doesn’t feel like that.”

“Are you breaking up with me?”

“I don’t know.”

“You just called me baby.”

“I know.” He looks at her. Shrugs. “I don’t know.” Takes his hand back. “I’m going to go take my meds, okay? And can we just…? I just want to go sleep.” She nods. “Can we do that?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Okay.”

Later, then, after he’s taken his meds with a glass of water and tried to gather himself a little, they find each other again. This time in their bed.

The room is light grey, light seeping in from behind their curtains and under the bedroom door. He can see her face and her, turned in his direction, still. With a gentle touch, he reaches out to push her hair off her neck.

She leans in to kiss him. Then keeps kissing him, until she’s pressed herself in close.

“I don’t want to do it if you’re sad,” he says, a quiet whisper that only makes her smile and reach out to touch his chin.

“I’m not sad,” she says. “I promise.”

Kissing her back, then, he rolls them over, and she continues to smile as he kisses down to the bra, all fabric, that he was there when she started wearing instead of the padded ones, and it seemed so insignificant then, but feels like it matters, now. Like he’s remembering all of the things they’ve seen each other through.

“I can’t imagine having sex with someone who isn’t you,” he says, after, still holding her close, because he hasn’t. “I don’t know how I’d do it.”

“A lot like that, probably,” she says, smiling still, and he snorts, before she raises her brows. “Or not. If it’s a boy.”

“That’s true.”

She runs a hand through his hair, and they almost never manage to be like this anymore. Almost never manage to have this content of a time, but they still do sometimes, which he thinks is why they’re even still here.

It’s the _perhaps it could change_ that’s the really treacherous part of all of this. It’s the _maybe_.

“I was so nervous with you, too,” he says, because if there’s a topic that’s almost always safe, it’s their shared past. The parts of it that were good, anyway. “So nervous.”

“I know,” she says, smiling. “It was very sweet.”

“Not very good.”

“No.” She laughs, and he smiles at it, still. “You couldn’t say that.” Sharing a gaze, they both roll their eyes about it. “Can I tell you a secret, though?”

“Mm-hm?”

“I loved it. I didn’t mind that it wasn’t very good, or that it took us some trial and error, or that I got that I got that bruise because you were that clumsy.”

“I got you ice.”

“Yeah.” She smiles, and it’s sad, It’s so, so sad. He reaches out to wipe one of her tears away. “I loved it, because it was with you. And you called them deleted scenes or something, and that was funny, at the time, but I also don’t think we needed to delete any of them. They were good precisely because they weren’t perfect.”

Their eyes meet.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“I’m lonely," she whispers back. "Even, I’m so, so lonely.” She’s still crying, but now she wipes the tears away herself. “You’re never home, and we never do anything, and I don’t feel like we’re friends anymore. I don’t even feel like we’re partners.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not just your fault,” she says, and it’s the first time she’s said that in a way that makes him believe it. “I know I’m driving you away, too.”

“I,” he says, because they’re sharing now, apparently. “I feel like we never like me at the same time.” She tilts her head. “It feels like either I do or you do. We never like me together.”

“I like you,” she says, a whisper, too.

“You love me. There’s a difference.”

“I like you, too.”

“It doesn’t always feel like it.”

Now she’s crying again.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “That’s horrible. I’m sorry that I make you feel horrible.”

“I’m sorry that I make you feel horrible.”

She shrugs. And there's something about the defeated nature of that that tells Even that he can't turn his head away from it anymore; that they just can't go on like this, anymore.

“We would have been a nice story,” he says, slipping into past tense, and she doesn’t correct him. Only smiles, again, in that tender, sad way. “High school sweethearts who made it.”

“Yeah,” she says. “We would.” And then: “It’s just our whole lives, Even. All of this furniture is ours, and there’s a year until the lease on the flat runs out, and– and–”

“I know,” he says. “I know, I know, I know. It’s just money, though. We’ll figure it out.”

“We?”

She says it so hopefully that it breaks his heart. Breaks it, because he did this to her, and they did this to each other, and they’ve been miserable for so, so long, staying for some hypothetical future they didn’t know how to create, and they’re both so broken by it. So worn down.

“Yeah,” he says. “We.”

She nods. And it’s the last thing they say to each other, before he pulls her in and she turns around in his grasp, back to him but palm placed over his hand on her stomach, like it hasn’t been for a while, and it could be the wrong decision but just as much as he’s filled with sadness, then, he’s also filled with relief.

“Was that it, last night?” she asks him, in the morning, still in their bed, and he holds her hand on the mattress between them as he nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “I think that was it.”

*

Seeing Isak, on that first night, is like a fresh breath of air. A deep gulp of cold water.

It’s true what he said to Isak, when he showed him the drawing: There is a sort of pull, there. There’s something that tugs in Even, that tells him that he could grow to like this boy, if he gave it time.

It’s chemistry, probably, and it was there when he met Sonja and Mikael, too, but also when he met the rest of the boys and even a little bit when he first met Jonas, at the interview. It’s just a hint, an inkling that they have shared interests and values and, thus, could come to like spending time with each other.

It’s strong with Isak, though.

Strong enough that, that night, when he puts his old covers on his new duvet and pillow before getting into his new bed, he finds himself smiling as he thinks about him. And then, later, finds himself drawing him.

It’s a weird sort of night, all in all. He’s sad, of course, he’s deeply, deeply sad, but just like the night when he and Sonja broke up, he’s relieved about it, too. Relieved to no longer having to deal with the oppressiveness of it all.

And then there’s the drawing. The fact that it gives him something to do and, on top of that, the fact that it makes him keep smiling to himself, the entire night. That it makes him feel a little hopeful.

It’s not the last time Isak makes him lie under his duvet, looking out the window with something light and happy and hopeful in his heart. It happens the night after their first kiss, too.

He’s cold, and his heart is still beating a little too fast, and he’s been stressed out for the entire weekend, and he’s still terrified, thoughts going a mile a minute, but he’s also managing to ignore them, completely, because _God_ :

God, he just got to kiss a boy. To kiss _Isak_. To kiss him and tell him that he liked him back, to have him in his arms, for just a little while, and he’ll get to keep having him in his arms, too.

He’ll get to _have him_. He’ll get to get to know him, even better than he already does, to explore everything they could be together, to kiss and touch and talk and talk and talk and he’s–

He’s so ecstatic about it.

So ecstatic, in fact, that he doesn’t sleep much that night, and so ecstatic, too, that, the next day, he can’t seem to stop touching Isak at all. Isak, though, doesn’t seem to mind, just smiles and smiles and smiles and leans into it, and Even thinks that he’s the bravest person he knows, for letting his guard down this easily, even after being burned.

“Actually,” Isak says, almost a little shyly, as they sit around the kitchen table that morning, eating cereal together in a way that’s altogether different from how it was the day before. “I had plans today.”

“Oh?”

“I was going to go buy a Christmas present for my mum.”

Even grins. Under the table, their socked feet touch, because he makes them, and it’s so fresh and so new and so delightful that even that sends him flying off the handles with excitement.

“Well,” he says, watching the way Isak smiles, all soft and heavy-lidded, when he runs the arch of his foot over Isak’s ankle, up under his sweatpants. “As the resident Christmas-lover I can get behind that.”

“Christmas boy.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to…?” Isak pauses, a second only, then goes on, like he had to gather courage to do it: “To come?”

“Yeah,” Even says, and vows to try and make him feel so wanted that he’ll never have to hesitate again. “I’d love to.”

“Okay.”

It’s nice, to be doing something. To have something to occupy them, so Even can have the jittery energy burned out of him and return to something more calm, and so they can have a common goal; something to navigate towards as they try to navigate this new, wonderful thing between them, too.

The don’t even make it to the tram before Even, acting brave so Isak won’t have to, reaches out to let his fingertips brush across Isak’s, revelling in it when Isak’s, almost on instinct, curls back to meet his. Then:

“This is sneaking,” Isak says, and Even laughs.

“Sorry,” he says, and slides his hand firmly into Isak’s, thumb between thumb and index finger, index finger between index finger and middle finger, and so on and so on, squeezing it a little bit in greeting. “Better?”

“Yeah,” Isak says. “Better.”

On the tram they do what they’ve done every other ride as well: Listen to music from Even’s splitter cable as Isak, somehow always a little sleepy, leans against his shoulder. And then there’s the new part:

The fact that they don’t stop holding hands.

*

An hour or so before midnight they go outside to set off the first bit of their fireworks.

They do it in the courtyard, close by the door, and it’s the same spot that they had their first kiss and their first chat about love. Even thinks Isak remembers, watches the private sort of smile he gives him, anyway, and uses two arms around his shoulders to pull him in closer. Isak, in turns, sneaks both of his arms around Even’s waist.

“Hi,” Even says, a quiet little thing pressed into Isak’s hair.

“Hi.”

It’s funny, how they’ve been circling around each other the entire night. It’s not in the longing sort of way that comes with a new prospect that you can’t have, but the comfortable sort of way. Like being at a family function with your parents, hanging out with uncles and cousins and everyone else, but ending up back with them, by their side, when you’re tired and want to go home.

Isak seems tired now, too, resting his head on Even’s shoulder so they’re practically standing in an embrace, even though he can’t really see the others from there, or any of the noisy fireworks that they’re setting off.

Even doesn’t mind. He likes this. This private little world that they’re building together, apart from everyone else. This little universe.

“Look,” he whispers, still, nudging Isak’s head a little with a twist of his shoulder, nodding towards the spot where Elias is lighting the firework fuse and running back to the rest of them, standing back to look at the sky. Him and Isak watch it, too, a few steps behind the rest of them, and when it goes off in a thousand colours, Even watches Isak smile.

“Pretty,” he says.

“Mm. Like you.” Isak glances up at him to roll his eyes, and Even laughs. “You need to learn how to take a compliment.”

“Thanks.”

“Mm.”

Still beaming, Even pulls Isak in a little closer, rubbing his upper back. Isak goes.

“I like the stars,” Isak says, then, in a quiet sort of tone that tells Even that he really means this.

“Yeah,” he says. “You said.” Isak glances up at him. “Multiple universes, remember?” And Isak smiles.

“Oh, yeah,” he says, and then: “The way you talk about me, it sounds like you really care about me.”

“I do."

“Yeah, but it sounds like it,” Isak goes on. Even waits a bit, watching him, thinking maybe he’ll go on, but he doesn’t. So:

“Explain?” Even asks, and Isak smiles again.

“Like that,” he says. “You pay attention to me. Like you’re interested.” He glances up to Even. “In me, I mean.”

“I am.”

“Yeah, but–” Isak breaks off, and Even thinks maybe he’s going to sigh about it, the fact that Even doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t. Instead he grows soft, shifting them around so their gazes can meet, as he raises a hand from Even’s waist to Even’s hair, removing a strand of it from his forehead. “I just mean that it’s– That I’d know. Even if you weren’t telling me, I’d know.”

And suddenly Even does understand.

Understands, because he understands how treacherously little words can mean if they’re not backed up by something concrete, and because he understands wanting to be cared for and wanting to see it.

“You know,” he says. “Not to talk about someone else, but I always knew that Sonja loved me, I just– In the end I started feeling like she didn’t really like me very much. You know?”

"Yeah," Isak says.

“Well.” Even wipes a thumb across his cheek. “I like you.”

Isak beams.

“I know,” he says. “I can feel it.” And then, pushing the hair behind Even’s ear yet again like he does, Even is learning, when he’s trying to do something nice for him or to comfort him back: “I like you, too.”

“I know,” Even says, because he does, and Isak’s smile turns into a chuckle. “I can feel it.”

They lean into the kiss at the same time. Even’s index finger under Isak’s chin to lift it, Isak’s palm to his neck, the other one to his shoulder, leaning into his chest; their faces resting together, like puzzle pieces that perfectly align, when they pull back apart.

“You’re so great,” Isak says, and it’s cold, tonight, so much so that Even can see the words turn into smoke in front of Isak’s lips. So much so that Even has this proof, this wonderful, beautiful proof, that they really exist. That he’s really saying them. “I just think you’re so great.”

And Even:

Even believes him.

*

Even is perfectly aware that there are moments in life that change it forever. He’s been in them without knowing it before, and he’s been in them and been able to tell, too.

The Friday of the date is one of those days, too.

He feels it, as he’s lying there, back to the snow, telling Isak about how terrifying it was to find himself in something, suddenly, that was not what he thought it’d be and not what he wanted; to find himself helpless to change it, and helpless to do anything but watch it as it fell more and more apart; to make an enemy out of someone he used to love.

To know how much of it was his fault.

He feels it, not because he hasn’t thought any of those things before, but because Isak challenges them. Because Isak tells him something he’ll probably remember for the rest of his life.

Later that night, then, once they make it back home, he tugs Isak towards the living room by their hands, intertwined now like they’ve been every time they’ve been outside after their kiss since that first time, and tugs him, then, towards the tree.

When he puts the star on top of it, Isak smiles.

“Looks good,” he says, delicately and like that’s all that really matters, and Even turns around and pulls him into a hug.

“I’m sorry that I made tonight mellow,” he says, while they’re embracing, but Isak shakes his head.

“I don’t mind,” he says, fixing Even’s hair when they pull apart, because it’s what he does. And then, with a little, gentle smile on his face: “Do you know that you apologize for your feelings a lot?”

Even almost snorts.

“Yeah,” he says, rolling his eyes at himself where Isak can see it, but Isak just shrugs.

“It’s okay,” he says. “But, you know, you don’t have to.”

“No?”

“No,” Isak says. “It’s all fine.”

“It’s all fine?”

“Yeah.” Isak nods. Touches his hair. “It’s all fine.”

*

Earlier, on the New Year’s Eve, before they go outside, Mutta asks to borrow a sweater or a hoodie from Even, because it's colder than he’d anticipated it’d be, and Even takes him, immediately, into his room.

“This is new,” Mutta says, pulling one of Even’s hoodies out, only it isn't his, Even remembers. It’s Isak’s, from the day before when Isak saw him sorting through his laundry and, sneakily, dumped a couple of his own things into the pile. “Christmas present?”

“Uh,” Even says. “No. It’s Isak’s, actually.”

Mutta smirks and Even rolls his eyes but he takes it, readily, when Mutta hands it to him, running his palm over the front of it and everything it means.

Earlier that week, still, Even is in Isak’s bed reading, when Isak comes back from a shower, and Even sneaks a look as he changes, but then goes back to the book, as Isak comes over to the bed, lying down besides him.

“Did you like what you saw?” he asks, and Even grins to himself, towards the pages of the book.

“Mm,” he says, without turning to look at him, but he hears Isak’s huff of amusement anyway.

When Isak leans into him, then, he lifts an arm to place it around his shoulders, and tugs him in even closer, before he glances down at him, finds his lips already spread in a smile, and dips in to give him a quick kiss; a peck that the both of them stay in, just because they can.

“You want me to read to you?” Even asks, then, and Isak raises his brows. “We could make it a tradition. One of ours.”

Isak grins.

“Mm,” he says. “That’s awfully couply of you, eh?”

“Well, I did talk to my mother about you.”

Isak chuckles.

“Alright,” he says, shrugging, before he settles into Even’s side, adjusting the covers around them and the pillows behind his neck, and Even waits to puts his arm back around him until he’s done, but then does, reaching around him far enough that, with a little bit of adjustment, he’ll be able to turn the page. Isak reaches up, small smile on his face, and touches the little note that Even made in the margins earlier with a fingertip, trailing over it like it's valuable, but doesn't say anything other than: “Read to me, then.”

"You like the note?"

"I like you."

"Okay."

Smiling, Even turns the book back towards himself to begin reading, and a little over 48 hours later he’s standing by Isak’s side, in their living room, playing a little with his hoodie-strings, and it’s almost midnight.

“You know,” he says. “I feel kind of like we’re ending something.”

“Ending it?” Isak says.

“Mm. Like December was this intense, transitional thing and like, now…” He takes a step in closer. “We’re starting real life.”

Smiling softly, Isak puts an arm around his neck, a palm to his jaw, his forehead to Even’s.

“Scary,” he says, but Even shakes his head. Then shrugs, too.

“Maybe a little bit,” he says. Pulls out so Isak will be looking at him, but not any further than that. “But exciting, too.”

As Isak grins, the rest of the party around them begins counting down. Raising their brows together, they both tilt their heads in a teasing sort of way.

“I agree,” Isak says, once the party reaches five. “I’m excited, too.”

“Good,” Even says.

“Good.”

“Two,” everyone says. “One.” And then:

As everyone else erupts in cheers, they lean in. 

And kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you tell that i love even? do chat to me about him in the comments
> 
> also in the vein of december's end-notes music talks i just want to tell you to listen to abba's happy new year tonight and cry. deal? deal


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let’s pretend this was planned like this all along
> 
> enjoy!

**January 1st 2018**

”I’m never,” Isak says, around the breakfast table that morning that is really the early afternoon. “Never, ever, ever drinking again.”

“You know,” Eskild says. “I doubt that very much to be true.”

Isak doesn’t even roll his eyes, maybe too ill to do so without making the room spin, but he does give Eskild a pointed look. Even smiles at them, a little to himself, around the rim of his cup of tea. If he’s being completely honest, it’s not like he’s feeling particularly on top of it either.

Last night, after the party started dying down, he went with Isak to his room where they both collapsed onto his bed, on their backs, to reduce the spinning to a minimum. When they woke up, a little after noon, Even’s whole body was aching; all of his muscles and all of his bones.

“Okay,” Isak says, now. “So I’m going to remember to drink water in-between drinks and I’m going to learn how to pace myself.”

“Mm.”

“I’m an adult.”

“Mm.”

“I should know how to do that.”

“Sure,” Eskild says. “Sounds great, baby Jesus.”

Grumbling a bit in Eskild’s direction, Isak moves his chair a step closer to Even’s, finds his shoulder, and leans on it, so Even leans his head on top of Isak’s. They’ve both brought their duvets in here, wrapped around their shoulders, and Even praises himself lucky that neither of them are in a course where the exams period starts tomorrow.

“I’m tired,” Isak says, quietly. “Do you want to go back to bed?”

"Mm-hm," Evey says, smiling. "Maybe."

“No.” It’s Eskild now. “We have to watch ski jumping on the living room couches and fall in and out of sleep until six pm tonight, where we’ll order pizza, and _then_ you can go back to bed.”

“It’s our tradition,” Isak says, when Even glances at him in question. “So we probably should.”

“Okay,” Even says. “Ski jumping it is.”

*

By the time they’ve settled down in the living room, last night’s party still around them in the form of bottles and confetti and a faint smell of smoke, Jonas and Eva, who slept over, have woken up, too, and joined. Apparently, Even is quickly finding out, it wasn’t a joke when Isak said this was tradition.

“Mm,” Eva says. “A hundred and twenty-nine.”

“He’s Norwegian,” Eskild says. “A hundred and thirty-five.”

“Calm down,” Jonas says. “A hundred and thirty-two.”

“What are you doing?” Even asks, of Isak, who’s cuddled into his side on the couch that they’re sharing with Eskild.

“We’re betting,” Isak says. “On how far they can jump.”

“It’s–?”

“Tradition?” Isak nods. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Even says. “So what are we betting? A hundred and thirty-tree?”

“Sure,” Isak says. “Okay.” And then, a little louder, to the rest of them: “We’re betting a hundred and thirty-three.”

As the guy, a Norwegian one, skis down the slope they all fall into silence as they watch, intensely, until–

A hundred and thirty-two point eight.

“That’s us,” Isak says, excited and then, to Jonas: “Suck it.”

“Chill out.”

“I’ll chill out when we’ve won.”

Even, catching Jonas’s eye over Isak’s head, just shrugs, rubbing Isak’s upper back a little. Isak is a competitive person when it comes to games, Even is quickly leaning and, well: Actually, Even thinks it’s rather sweet.

“You’re very intense,” he says, quietly, into Isak’s temple, kissing it, before Isak glances up at him with his brows raised.

“Do you mind?”

“No.” Even shakes his head and, then, just to tease, lifts Isak’s chin a little and leans in close but not all the way, so Isak will have to close the gap himself. “I love it.”

Isak closes it. Briefly. But when he pulls away from the kiss he stays close, head on Even’s shoulder close by his neck, and Even:

Even likes this so much. All of these traditions that could be his now, too; the softness that sits all over Isak’s bones when he’s sleepy, like this; the fact that it’s New Year’s Day and they’re still here.

Later, after they’ve all ordered pizza and had it, too, on the living room floor instead of in the kitchen, because it’s the kind of day that allows that, they start cleaning the flat up, too. Put the leftover bottles in plastic bags by the door, get out to broom and the vacuum to get the confetti off the floor, wipe down all the alcohol-sticky surfaces they can find.

“You know,” Even says, that evening, once they make it back to his room, this time, where he’s lying with his back to the mattress, watching Isak get out of his jeans. “It’s our meeting-each-other anniversary today?”

“I do,” Isak says, leaving the jeans behind on the floor as he gets onto the bed, too, and astride Even’s thighs, and Even places his palms on Isak’s. “It’s very conveniently easy to remember, eh?”

“Mm.” Even touches Isak’s thighs, thumbs caressing the insides of them, and then takes his hand, one of them, to bring it to his lips and give it a kiss. “I liked today, you know.”

“Today?” Isak says. “Why?”

“Because,” Even says. “It’s the real life we talked about.”

Isak smiles, and takes Even’s hands, so Even intertwines their fingers and lets Isak leans down so their noses touch and bury their hands under Even’s pillow, just above his head.

“Go on,” Isak says, but in a flirting sort of tone now, and Even can tell where this is going.

“Well,” he says. “It’s symbolic.”

Isak grins. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “Movie guy.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Go on.”

Even smiles.

“And,” he says. “There’s the New Year’s Eve, the party, the high. And then there’s New Year’s Day. The cleaning up, the back to normal.”

The fact that he was wrong when he worried himself to the ground, thinking maybe it was a mixture of bad timing and too good to be true so strong that he wouldn’t get to keep it beyond the magical month of December; that it couldn’t move beyond a winter fling.

“Ah.”

“Yeah.” Where their hands are intertwined, Even rubs his thumb over the back of Isak’s, and Isak squeezes his back. “Do you know that I kind of like doing laundry now, if it’s with you?” Isak chuckles. “And the dishes.”

“And the dishes?”

“Mm.”

“You’re very nice to me.”

“Well, you’re the one I go to to get laid.”

Laughing, Isak lets go of his hands to give his chest a little shove.

“Shut up,” he says, and Even laughs, too. “I’m very easy, you don’t even have to do a lot.”

“You’re easy?”

“For you.”

And God. God, Even is so gone for him, so soft for him, so–

So goddamn in love with him.

Actually, he loves him. Loves a lot of things, really, and does it very quickly, too. Always has, perhaps because he’s so intense as a person, and sometimes the speed makes him question the truth or the depth of it, even to himself, but it’s always been true, before. Maybe, if he has anything going for him, it’s his intuition.

“What?” Isak says. “What’s that look?”

“Nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

“Well.”

Even shrugs. And then, reaching up to cup Isak’s cheeks, he licks his lips, before he pulls him in, and kisses him. Kisses him so it says something, thumb across his cheekbones and heart on his sleeve, hopefully, as Isak kisses back.

When they pull apart, Isak is beaming.

“What?” Even asks.

“No, nothing.”

“Yes, what?”

Isak grins. Grins and grins and grins, rolling off him to cuddle into his side instead, staying out just far enough that they can look at each other, Even’s hand to Isak’s waist and Isak’s hand, fixing the hair behind Even’s ear.

“Come on,” Even says. “What?”

“Are you in love with me?”

And, _oh._

So Isak can tell.

So Even grins, too.

“How do you know?” he says. “What?” Isak chuckles, looking so joyous Even’s whole heart soars, but he keeps it going: “Are you a mind reader now?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

Isak keeps laughing, getting in closer, leg across Even’s legs, arm around his neck, chest against chest and lips almost meeting, and God.

“Mm-hm,” he says. “Just for you though.”

“Twilight reversed.”

“Exactly.”

“Isak.” They look at each. And Isak, God, Isak: Isak looks so goddamn happy, so content, a smile in his eyes and on his lips and he’s beautiful. He’s so beautiful. “Baby.”

Isak touches his cheek. Leans in so their noses touch.

“I feel the same, you know,” he says, and Even forgot all about that, that Isak could say it back, but he remembers, now, as the warmth of it spreads through him; the simultaneously peaceful and jubilant delight of it; the thrill. “I feel it, too.”

“Are you in love with me?”

“Yeah.”

Isak nods as he says it, and he’s still beaming. Hasn’t stopped beaming yet.

Even kisses him. Kisses him deeply, desperate for it. Craving. Kisses him like Isak kisses him back, both of them melting into it like they want to experience every little ounce of it.

“Well,” he says, once they pull apart, still holding Isak close. “Happy real life, then.”

Isak laughs. And then:

“Yeah,” he says. “Happy real life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't we all like a bit of a love-confession, eh? a bit of cheese? i hope so
> 
> happy 2018! love y'all


End file.
